perspective on genoa, berlusconi and fascism

So I'm ok, safe, and out of Italy. The past 48 hours or so have been simply unbelievable, incredible and obscene. The State, in general, and the State of Italy, in particular, made us at IMC realize that all the rules of the game had been thrown out the window. We have no civil rights, no right to a fair trial, no right to receive a clear charge or even to appeal our conviction. I never had much illusion about the treatment that the State meted out to dissidents, but I have seldom come across such a clearly extortionate process. We have been told that if we do not cooperate we will suffer any and all penalties that the State chooses to impose, up to and including the death penalty. This statement was not made by Silvio Berlusconi's office, but the actions of his police have leave no ambiguity. There is a rich irony that Italy, a supposed champion in the campaign to criticize the USA for the death penalty imposes it's own so-much-more unaccountable one.
As we, one by one, got the message, yesterday, there started out the door a steady stream of Indymedia people. Those who still wanted to stay had their options reduced when GSF informed us that the IMC was being shut down, and the computer equipment was dismantled and taken out the door. I decided to make my way to a safer spot outside Italy where I could do my crying and get back to work.
I am surprised to see no mention of our colleague, Sky, from Indymedia UK, either on the italy or uk sites. I was informed, before I left, by the members of Indymedia UK that he was in a hospital in critical condition after the beating he received as the cops swooped down on their midnight raid. I talked personally with a man who was with him and also beaten. Left on the street by the four cops who had descended on him, Sky's companion, had crawled in through the gates of the GSF center while the cops were busy with the gymnasium where they were beating people bloody. If someone knows his status there should be a update posted in the feature section so that it does not get lost in the newswire.
There were so many thoughtful articles I was going to write before all hell broke loose, and now I find I am at a loss for words. I will write about my experiences talking to the people of Genoa towards the end of events Friday, as well as about the mood in the IMC on Saturday. I'll even try to be thoughtful about what happened as the riot police entered the communications room on the ground floor and there was that hard moment as I was preparing to have the nightsticks crash down on my head and how I tried, successfully, thank-mother-earth-and-any-god-you-choose, to talk the riot cops who had just savagely beaten someone just 5 meters earlier down from their adrenaline highs.
It seems that for this round the cops and state have overwhelmed our ingenuity with their tenacity. No where in my wildest dreams, when I wrote that analysis in my article of Friday morning (search for 'rojas' to find it) did I think I had so correctly captured the mood of the forces of repression in Genoa. Nor did I expect the brutality they were going to implement with such impersonal and clinical precision.
I keep returning to the idea that it's not just a piece of polemic to say the Italian government is Fascist. Litterally, they are, as the MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano), direct heir to Mussolini's Fascist party is a member of the rulling coalition along with other neo-fascist and hard right parties.
I think that so long after the 20s, 30s, and 40s when this ugly philosophy wrecked death and destruction, and which ended in the near total anihilation of Europe and Ethiopia by the end of WWII, we have forgotten to take Fascism seriously. We act like what happened was simply the product of a few evil personalities that simply could not exist today, in our societies and in positions of power. The word itself has just become a catch all phrase to insult anyone you don't like.
I am guilty of this myself. I never quite took that last Italian election seriously. It was inconceivable that the cosmopolitan, eudcated people of Italy, had literally voted into office that same system that they had foolishly helped bring into power 80 years ago. All the comments were just propaganda. Sure Berlusconi was bad. He was a front for laundering illegal money, and he was tricky, but he really wasn't Mussolini.
I've been looking at photos of the two of them, and it strikes me now as bitterly ironic that they look so similar. Put Berlusconi in one of those khaki outfits the Duce loved and he would look like his brother.
I know that this argument will seem extreme and that it will sound like raving, but I ask you to take a deep breath, step back from your preconceptions, and simply look at the fact of who makes up the current government. I guess how Berlusconi looks in khaki is a matter of personal opinion, and not really important in the end. It is only in my nature to see the poetic picture along with the factual one.
I wish the poetic picture was one of sunsets by the sea. It's not, and I don't want to put my skill to the use of ugliness so I'll stick to the facts.
I'm chilled right now as I think back to the statements I heard from Italians, last Spring and also in 1994 that Berlusconi could not last. They have been only half right, so far. 1994 was his 'Munich Putsch', and he has learned from his mistakes how to make a more virulent version of his poison. It is one that is better at stunning the victims into passivity before it drains away their life. That Berlusconi could not last was exactly the same opinion of the left when Mussolini came to power and doubly so when Hitler was invited to take over the German government. Everyone on the left was sure that the two would just make fools of themselves and in a few months there would be a return to reason.
They were tragically wrong.
It is now time to bring the best of our ingenuity to work to overwhelm their violence. We must reveal their lies by showing, unquestionably, the truth.
I hope that Berlusonci does not last, but I don't think we can be complacent that he will embarrass himself from power. We have been given a chance to replay history.
Will we do any better this time?